Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (234569)	12/28/2009 3:54:16 PM
From: Skeeter Bug	Respond to of 306849

delete - ok, i hadn't read through the whole article yet...

To: Les H who wrote (234569)	12/28/2009 4:23:49 PM
From: BWAC	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

When the banksters and the Fed terrorists finish recapitalizing the banks with risk free money and making interest payments on that risk free money when its uselessly deposited back at the Fed, do you suppose just maybe they can get around and recap the PEOPLE?!? Good Grief. F'n banksters. How about the Fed let Grandma in on some of those sweet CD rates. Jackasses, f'n looting thieving lying scheming banksters trash and their paid for Fed Fools.

To: Les H who wrote (234569)	12/28/2009 6:46:25 PM
From: Les H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Specifically, ShopperTrak’s latest National Retail Sales Estimate (NRSE) notes that online sales attached to ‘Super Saturday’ (December 19), which is the final Saturday before Christmas, leapt to $767 million USD in 2009 – a year-on-year improvement of some 13 percent. Conversely, retails sales attributed to traditional bricks-and-mortar outlets plunged by 12.6 percent, while foot traffic through stores across the United States fell by around 12.4 percent. In all, walk-in sales on December 19 accounted for approximately $6.9 billion USD, which, while clearly a huge number, is a significant shortfall when measured against the $7.9 billion USD registered in 2008, and the $8.7 billion USD amassed on the final Saturday ahead of Christmas in 2007. thetechherald.com Tanker Glut Signals 25% Drop on 26-Mile Line of Ships By Alaric Nightingale and Alexander Kwiatkowski Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) -- A 26-mile-long line of idled oil tankers, enough to blockade the English Channel, may signal a 25 percent slump in freight rates next year. Traders booked a record number of ships for storage this year, seeking to profit from longer-dated energy futures trading at a premium to contracts for immediate delivery, according to SSY Consultancy & Research Ltd., a unit of the world’s second- largest shipbroker. Ships taken out of that trade would return to compete for cargoes just as deliveries from shipyards’ largest-ever order book swell the global fleet. “The tanker market has been defying gravity,” said Martin Stopford, a London-based director at Clarkson Plc, the world’s largest shipbroker. Stopford has covered shipping since 1971. More than half of the ships are in European waters, with the rest spread out across Asia, the U.S. and West Africa. Lined up end to end, they would stretch for about 26 miles. Storing Crude Traders are storing enough crude at sea to supply the 27- nation European Union for more than three days. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company; London-based BP Plc; JPMorgan Chase & Co.; and Morgan Stanley were among those that sought vessels for storage. By the end of November, 168 tankers were storing crude or refined products, according to data from Simpson, Spence & Young Ltd., the world’s second-largest shipbroker. Their combined carrying capacity of 23.8 million deadweight tons is equal to 5.9 percent of the tanker fleet. That exceeds the previous record, set in 1981, when Japanese refiners used tankers with a combined 19.5 million deadweight tons. The storage helped prop up tanker rates this year as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, accounting for 40 percent of global oil supply, made the deepest-ever output cuts in response to the worst global recession since World War II. The storage trade is profitable so long as the spread between energy contracts exceeds ship rental, insurance and financing costs. A year ago, the spread between the first and sixth Brent crude-oil contracts traded on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange was 23 percent. Now, it’s 4 percent. businessweek.com